In this edition of the “How It’s Done” series, we take a deep dive into operating a retail sportsbook with Justin Arnett of Potawatomi Casino Hotel, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Sportsbook and sports betting veteran Justin Arnett has a good problem.
Since opening the Potawatomi Sportsbook on May 3, 2024, Arnett has been focused on keeping a culture of entertaining engagement alive while experiencing high volume and intense visitation in a successful high-end sportsbook venue.
Justin Arnett, VP of Digital Gaming, discussed the development and success of the Potawatomi Sportsbook in Milwaukee with me for “How It’s Done.” The sportsbook spans two floors at 6,500 sq. ft. with a 2,160 sq. ft. LED screen and 95 kiosks, which, according to Arnett, is one of the top two in gross gaming revenue for reporting sportsbooks in the U.S. The venue features over 20 TVs, with seating for 200, and a broadcast booth for increased engagement.
The sportsbook has attracted a younger, more male demographic and significantly boosted table games, slot revenues, and F&B sales. Arnett emphasized the importance of self-branding and continuous customer engagement through innovative features like a social media wall and potential mobile on-premises betting.
The dam breaks
For the longest time, Nevada was the only state that had legal sports betting. That changed in 2018 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, which prohibited sports betting outside of Nevada. The Supreme Court’s ruling gave states the power to legalize sports betting, opening the dam for legal sports betting across the U.S.
As of February 2025, the exact number of tribal gaming compacts in the United States that include provisions for legal sports betting is not readily available. The inclusion of sports betting provisions in tribal-state gaming compacts varies by state and is influenced by evolving state laws and negotiations between tribes and state governments.
Exceeded expectations
I asked Arnett if Potawatomi Casino Hotel considered their ambitious plans for a Vegas-style retail sportsbook as an amenity or a profit center.
“This was Dominic Ortiz, our CEO’s vision. He brought me in to help enact the vision. I don’t know what his genesis was, but we definitely see it as more than just an amenity. We knew what the sports fan in Milwaukee was all about. We knew it would be a premier entertainment destination. We wanted it to have a Vegas-style experience. I don’t know what his expectations were, but I believe we’ve exceeded them,” Arnett said.
Work your way up
Justin Arnett describes himself as a “Work my way up kind of guy” who discovered that the lifestyle of a professional poker player in Las Vegas was not for him.
“My first job in gaming was as a ticket writer at the Gold Coast Las Vegas, and right after that, the Cosmopolitan opened up. I went there as a ticket writer and soon became a supervisor. Not long after that, I moved into the risk room. This was in the very early days of mobile apps.
“I was responsible for a lot of In-Play trading in the early days. I was pretty good at that, and I enjoyed it. And then, I went back into operations and became a manager. I was running the Venetian and Palazzo sportsbooks for some time and then had an opportunity to work for the Oneida’s to open three sportsbooks from scratch in Upstate New York. That was my first experience with tribal gaming at Turning Stone.
“I was there for three years. It was great. Then I saw the writing on the wall that mobile was coming. I was like, ‘I have all this retail experience, and that’s not the future.’ I knew my kingdom was going to shrink. I left, and I worked for the Seminoles and Hard Rock Digital.” Arnett then joined Potawatomi as Vice President of Digital Gaming.
Kambi
The Potawatomi sportsbook occupies the space of a former theater that was completely converted. The sportsbook was in two temporary spaces before the theater space was opened. I asked Arnett what went into the decision to choose Kambi as their sportsbook system and partner.
“If you go with a lot of the large commercial operators that everyone’s familiar with, their business model is to use their branding and run most of the operations. It’s a very tight revenue share. We had the vision here to operate the sportsbook ourselves and use our branding. We chose the operator that, in our view, is the best white-label option that’s available.
“Kambi has probably the best bet builder on the planet, which is the most important part of a modern sportsbook. They give you all the resources to do your operations on top of their platform, and they have a good support system. We wanted to do it ourselves. Being tribal, we don’t want to give up sovereignty or to give up revenue and put our database in the hands of a commercial casino sportsbook operator. If iGaming ever comes, we want to control our own destiny.
“It was important for us to operate it ourselves and build it out. You don’t have to operate under somebody else’s brand. When you do a white label, the finances and the economics are drastically different, and that’s much better for us. We keep a lot more of the funds,” Arnett declared.
Labor and seasonality
Arnett’s experience taught him how to deal with the ups and downs of labor seasonality when operating sportsbooks.
“After a decade and a half of running sportsbooks, I was pretty comfortable with what the seasonality looks like. We try to go a little heavier with a part-time contingent. It’s ideal when you can find people who are looking for part-time weekend or night jobs because that’s when we have the biggest upswing. Then, we can flex down and up. In the off-season, we can shrink down a little bit,” said Arnett.
Exclusivity
‘We do have exclusivity in the Milwaukee metropolitan area. It’s a pretty good setup. That’s exclusive as a gaming casino and a sportsbook. The only gaming in the state of Wisconsin is tribal, and up north, Oneida has exclusivity in the Green Bay Area, Ho-Chunk around Madison, and whatnot. We’re fortunate to have exclusivity here in the Milwaukee area,” Arnett said.
That exclusivity and the lack of mobile sports betting in Wisconsin leads to high volumes for their retail sportsbook.
“We’re doing tens of thousands of bets on an NFL Sunday. You could say we’re doing more bet volume in terms of raw bets than any other sportsbook in the country. I would be shocked if we weren’t the number one in the country, and by a pretty big margin. On an NFL Sunday, we have a hard time processing all the bets. We have lines at all 90-something kiosks, and all our ticket writers are turning and burning,” Arnett exclaimed.
A new set of customers
On the national level, sports betting attracts the sought-after 25- to 34-year-old crowd, which is typically 75% male. Arnett states that the property is seeing a bump in table games and slot revenue as well as a significant uptick in food and beverage revenues.
“There’s a dramatic shift in our database to younger and more male. We didn’t get our rewards platform integrated until last September. Even prior to that, guests were coming in and signing up for a rewards card. It’s the demographic you might expect: very male and very young. But one thing we also saw was the youngest demographic of females had a giant boost. Were they bringing in their girlfriends, and they are signing up? We have to speculate on that a little bit, but that’s what it looks like.
“We’re seeing a lift in table games and slots. Sports betters come in and realize they want to try out all the other amenities we have the offer, all the other gaming options,” Arnett said.
“Our F&B Vice President has done a very good job with food programming. It’s a profit center in itself! What’s interesting is it looks like it was a marginal lift. It wasn’t taking away from our Marketplace, Asian restaurant, or our Rock & Brews restaurant. It just has its own new set of customers. So, it’s been very good. It was all an uplift,” Arnett stated.
New national mindset
As a relatively new sportsbook, I asked Arnett if there was a learning curve that required an educational program for sports betting.
“There absolutely is a learning curve for both guests and staff, especially early on. I think that’s less and less as sports betting has gotten more prevalent as a kind of national mindset. I think that the new customers and consumers are much more educated than they were six years ago. Anytime you have a new amenity or a new form of gaming on your property, there’s going to be a little bit of a learning curve,” Arnett revealed.
A good problem to have
The Potawatomi Sportsbook is in a unique position as a retail operation that does not compete with online and mobile sportsbooks. The result is that they do not push hard on player development programs or promotions.
“We have VIP seating in the mezzanine. We haven’t really reached out to our VIPs or created VIP events. We have so much demand that we haven’t really felt a need to do anything like that yet.
“We do not do a ton of promotions per se. If anything, it’s in conjunction with our F&B with food or drink specials. We are hosting a tailgate party for the Super Bowl, but we don’t do a ton of promotions. I’m in a good position where my challenge is to get all the bets in, not trying to get them in the door. You know, that’s a pretty good problem to have,” Arnett exclaimed.
Social media wall
“We have a social media wall that we add to our layouts in the sportsbook. We follow sports betting-specific accounts and post to them. So, it’s a scrolling feed of pertinent social posts, mostly X, and there’s also a QR code that you can scan your own messages up to the board.
“It is interactive, it’s moderated by AI, and if we have to, we can get in and manually override. It’s another way to try and rethink the product, keep people engaged, and have some ownership. It’s kind of a cool little quirk. I haven’t seen anything quite like it anywhere else. At Circa in Las Vegas, they have a Twitter feed. But this is the next step. It’s on our big screen and keeps it up on most layouts,” Arnett said.
Trends
“One thing I’ve identified this year is just how popular prop bets are, in particular, the touchdown score props. Those have really ramped up, and it’s a significant portion of our handle. It moves the needle. People love to bet that stuff. I love to see it. I’m from the days when it was basically money line, total, and spread. Our touchdown scores bets are almost, not quite, but almost to the magnitude of totals. That surprises me how much that’s really come on,” Arnett remarked.
Recommendations
I asked Arnett his recommendations for Native American casinos considering retail sportsbooks.
“I am a big believer in doing it yourself through white labeling. It depends on your market, and everyone’s different, whether you have the resources or not. If you can do it, and if you’re on the fence, do it yourself. You don’t want to lose control of your database, give up your branding, or let that money out the door. If the money goes out the door, sovereignty goes out the door, and that’s what it’s all about. I really think if you can make it work, try to go B to B and find a good partner,” Arnett stated.
Next steps
“We’re in the process of vetting out and building a mobile sportsbook that will be geo-fenced on-premise. It’s a better product and a better experience for the customer not to get up out of their seat and have to go find a ticket writer or a kiosk.
“Live betting happens so quickly. It will be expensive just for mobile on-premise. It may pay for itself, but it may not. If statewide mobile ever comes, we will have gotten the kinks out. We’ll have gotten a little bit of operational expertise on how that works, and we’ll be ready. I think digital and online are only going to increase.
“There’s always going to be a space for retail. People love to be social. They love to be around other people. Retail is never going away completely. It’s always going to have value. But we’re moving more into the digital age. We’re looking into continuously engaging our customers in the retail space and then trying to maintain that engagement through a mobile app,” Arnett said.
Next best thing
Operating the Potawatomi Sportsbook, Justin Arnett brings longtime experience into running a pure retail sportsbook with volumes that would make any operator proud. Arnett keeps the guest experience positive using his high-end sportsbook as the next best thing to being at a live game, tournament, or race.
Arnett’s experience tells him that running his sportsbook as a white label is not only vastly more profitable but also a pathway to sovereignty. He encourages operators planning to open sportsbooks to operate them independently. His message is that retail sportsbooks will always have a place, but the oncoming trends are iGaming and mobile.
Check out more articles under our How It’s Done Series every issue by going to www.tgandh.com and typing in How It’s Done in the search field.
